From Nobody To Nightmare
by FluffleNeCharka
Summary: The Safety Patrol deals with something they never saw coming - a school shooting. Things more or less fall apart from there as they try to get the situation under control. Rated for violence and general darkness.
1. Snapped

**Author's Note:** Future chapters will be longer. This is but a brief intro. I'm thinking about pushing this up to M in rating because of the content, even if it's not violent or gore-filled in detail. Your thoughts?

* * *

_All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day. You had a bad day once. Am I right? I know I am. You had a bad day once and everything just changed._ - The Joker

_"Pol Pot was a history teacher and Hitler was a vegetarian painter, so... mass murderers come from the areas you least expect it. I don't know how the flip comes over, but it happens."_ — Eddie Izzard

* * *

Today's the day.

I storm through the school, my footsteps determined and loud, glaring at people until they move out of my way. I see them whisper, or ignore me, or approach cautiously. They don't interfere. That's X for you. In a school this big no one notices, no one sees the things going down in front of them unless it's relevant to them. I could come here in a Pikachu suit and no one would give me a second thought, because I'm not in any clique they need to suck up to. The crowd parts like water for me as I make my way forward. I blend into this mass of humanity because in this place there is nothing you can say or do that will ever get anyone to notice you. No one here cares about anyone. It's a shallow hive of insanity where self absorbed people live their lives together but a million miles away from each other. I have drowned in this nightmarish place for an entire semester and a half. I have been crushed under the weight of this high pressure, low compassion society without a heart. And now I have finally had enough.

No one asks about the bruises on my face. No one notices the blood on my shirt and face. My nosebleed could be a cut artery and they wouldn't even blink. I'm nobody, not a rich kid, a clique member, a club leader or a new kid. I'm old news, unimportant, and it fuels me on as I keep moving, with the crowd of students switching classes. In the current I am invisible. I work with that fact. I let my own low standing camouflage me until I get close enough that I'm in range. I planned this out. I thought about it so many times. I always put the plan down, thought it was too much, wouldn't fight evil with evil. No matter what I thought, I was never able to really consider doing it. Not when I knew what the consequences could be.

But I have nothing left to lose now.

It's possible to hit rock bottom and keep falling. And now that I've done that, now that there is nothing left, I am free. Everything within me has been uncaged. I may not be able to undo the past, but I can make sure these monsters never get to do to anyone else what they did to me. What they did to _her_. My best friend, my soul mate, the only person who would have noticed if I lived or died. They crossed a line when they touched her. They crossed the last line I had. My own personal dignity was long gone, I was stripped of even my proper name by the tormentors, and yet there was something, someone, that I still cared for. So long as you are attached to something, you can be hurt. The sick and glorious inverse of that was that without anything or anyone to care about, a person is as good as invincible. How can you scare someone who wants to die? How can you intimidate someone who has lost everything? I am invincible now. You can't break the broken or hurt the numb. This school will pay for what it's done. These _people,_ these demons in bullies' flesh, they'll pay in full if it takes everything I have. I will not lay down and take this anymore.

I am the necessary evil. Folsom will never do anything about bullying. She turns a blind eye as if nothing ever happens. So I have to do something so radical she can't ignore it or sweep it under the rug. I have to scream to be heard. And if I can take down the people who have made life torture, well, it's a bonus. Because no matter what happens today, the world will know the truth about this overflowing ant hill we call X. My knees aren't shaking anymore and my heart stopped pounding in my chest last night. Last night they broke me. Last night they killed me. All that is left is that which I had been suppressing. All the hate, the anger, the darkness, has burst forth, and I'm proud. I'll use it to make the world see. They'll all see. They'll understand when it's all over.

And when I'm through, they'll ask why. And they'll uncover what these monsters did. Then it will be their names tarnished. They'll be the ones with their reputations destroyed. They'll be seen as the monsters they really are. People will know their true colors. It won't be my name they whisper in the hall when they gossip. Nobody here will understand at first, but they will. Then they'll all see that their heroes are complete and total monsters without souls or consciences. The world will know what happened. We won't be insignificant under the radar casualties. Folsom likes to ignore us, the little people, the kids without academic worth, the nobodies. Let's see her ignore this.

I pull my hand gun out, press it to the back of my tormentor's neck, and pull the trigger.


	2. Reaction

**Author's Note:** Thank you to my lovely and fast reviewers, especially Tend To Infinity. I'll try not to make this flat out gore, because that's not what this is about. (Side note: the next chapter of Be All My Sins Remembered is actually halfway done right now. Expect an update soon.) Anyway, I'm not satisfied with the length of this, but I like the way it plays out, so hopefully it's okay.

* * *

I was with Anza when I heard the first shot.

There was the loudest bang I'd ever heard in my life. And there was some kid I didn't recognize with a gun. The hallway erupted into a chorus of screams as people surged every direction away from the scene, and the force was such that it knocked me over. People stepped on my arms and legs in their hurry. I heard another shot as Anza dropped to his knees and grabbed my hand. He was shaking. His blue eyes were wider than I'd ever seen them. Already there was something akin to cold sweat beading on his skin.

The third shot made the screaming double and even from my position I could see the blood on the walls now. I realized as I stood that I was shaking too, more than I'd ever been in my life.

"Everybody get to the classrooms!" he screamed, and I instantly realized why. Most of the classrooms on this floor had doors that locked from the inside. But in the chaos it was impossible to see who was following advice and who hadn't even heard us in their panic.

"Please, don't-" someone was saying.

There was another shot. And then Anza had yanked me into the nearest classroom, where we huddled in the back out of the line of fire with the other kids. Some people were crying. Some people were freaking out. A few were staring ahead with already shellshocked expressions. I felt like my knees were going to give out at any moment, so I collapsed into a desk. Anza was pale. He reached for his walkie talkie but couldn't seem to find the words, and his hands were shaking too hard to work the thing anyway, so I grabbed it from him gently. Holding it up to my mouth, I took in three deep breaths before starting. My heart was racing and I could feel my pulse in my head. Some kids were talking, but I couldn't focus enough to discern what they were saying.

"Come in, anyone come in! Please respond. We have a code... I don't even know! This is really bad, I need to talk to Vallejo right now!"

Under the circumstances, I consider that to be highly calm and reasonable.

"I'm here, Tehama," Vallejo responded, worry evident in his voice. "What's happening?"

"There's someone in the Main Hall, with a gun, I - we heard shots - Vallejo I don't know what to do," I burst out in a rush. "We have some kind of plan for this, right?"

The silence on the other end was deafening as he no doubt said something to someone. I realized then that the room was silent too, staring at me, watching the walkie talkie like it was going to save them. And I knew then that no matter what plan we had in place, it had failed. All our preventive measures had failed. Our plans had never involved response. Evacuate people, that was the plan, and beyond there wasn't anything in place because we'd been so busy making rules and planning for how to react to other things. Folsom hadn't deemed a school shooting possible, except in that long shot way floods or earthquakes were. This wasn't even a thought in the back of our minds, honestly.

Out in the hall, I heard another gunshot, more distant now. I could hear someone crying in pain out there, but I didn't dare move, couldn't think or breathe. Anza had his cellphone out and was trying frantically to call someone, but something was wrong. It wasn't working. A girl with blonde hair in pigtails was trying her phone to no avail. We didn't know back then that the cell phones were being blocked. We didn't know what was wrong. All we knew was that our phones weren't working. Help wasn't coming.

We were alone.

* * *

My students were freaking out, Morry was freaking out, and his students were huddling around me.

I climbed onto the nearest chair and whistled for silence. My class responded automatically, God bless their force of habit. Mr. Morrin's students stared blankly at me as I cleared my throat and did a head count. Sixty four of us, counting my teacher's aide, Morry, and the manager from the Board of Education who was supposed to be evaluating me. Their eyes were all on me, every color and shade imaginable, and I could feel myself heat up in that stage fright like feeling I used to get when put on the spot. But I straightened up and took a deep breath.

"Listen up! Everyone is going to follow Mr. Morrin out the back door and down to the tunnels. From there we have signs in place to guide you to the south parking lot, where you can get out safely. I'm going to go pull the fire alarm so the police will know something's wrong. Then I'm going to go get the other students, okay? Stay with your partners and don't diverge from the tunnel's green route. Follow Mr. Morrin, alright?"

My students stared at me with uncomprehending eyes. Morry was giving me a look that said he thought I was insane. "You can't be serious, Miss Passik."

"This isn't up for debate. I may not have seniority over you at this school, but I'm younger and more agile. I can do this. Get going. I'll come as soon as I can." I stared into his green eyes and heard one of my girls begin to cry. I didn't have to look away to identify who it was. "I'm coming back, Zoay. I promise."

Morry smiled grimly at me. For the first time in two years, he wasn't arguing with me. That was an indicator of how far in over our heads we were. No insults about my age or my stupidity or my optimism. The world must be ending. He didn't even have a racial slur for me. This whole day was really messed up, but I guess he didn't want to say goodbye to me on a sour note. I smiled back at him, feeling something final pass between us. It was our inner English teachers, our inner poets, coming to the surface for a brief moment as he reached out and wrapped an arm around me, briefly. Then he cleared his throat and began moving towards the long abandoned, dusty back door. Instinctively two students moved to help him push aside the book case blocking it. The stairs were dark and unlit, the tunnels long abandoned and decaying, and my students clutched their partners and friends. More than one of them stared lingeringly at me as I gestured for them to go on. It wasn't even fear of the darkness so much as it was fear of the unknown. And shock. Shock was going to be prevalent today, I thought.

"Go on. You'll be fine," I said reassuringly as my fists clenched behind my back and my body tensed. "I've got it under control."

When the last of them were gone, I exhaled slowly, pulled my hair back so it was out of my way, and opened the door. The hallways were empty by now, kids hiding and huddling, voices coming from every door. I had to make the decision - did I pull the fire alarm and alert the shooter, or did I evacuate people and wait, endangering people? My footsteps were frighteningly loud in the stillness. I yanked down the fire alarm, wincing at the incredible volume of the sound. Over the chaos I made my way to the nearest classroom. The door was locked, but when they saw it was me the kids opened it instantly, seeking to usher me in and protect me.

Instead, I climbed atop Mrs. Halldane's desk and cleared my throat as the alarm faded. "Listen up!"

* * *

The alarm was honestly not even heard in the din of the Safety Patrol's Headquarters.

I stood there and watched everything unfold, and can you believe that I wasn't one of the people yelling? I actually just sat there and stared ahead at the walkie talkie in my hand. I remember thinking, _this shouldn't be happening._ They say sometimes in shock you quit thinking. I couldn't stop. Anza. Tehama. Ingrid. How many people were out there in the chaos? How many kids were out there? How many bullets did this person have? What was going on? Why were they doing this? What was I going to tell my mom? The moms of the kids shot? I pushed my chair out and stood up, reaching into my desk. Tazer, pocket knife confiscated from some kid this morning, handcuffs. How the heck were we supposed to stop this with this stuff? What was I supposed to do right now? I felt like my thoughts were a whirlwind inside of me and I looked to Vallejo for guidance as he whistled to get our attention.

"Zhen, Vasquez, Sabisi, Winters and O'Farrell, you're on communications. Talk to everyone you can, contact every Officer. I need to know where my people are. Skylander, DeCosta, Wagner, I want you to look through the security footage, figure out who we're dealing with. I got a feeling some of the cameras glitching up isn't a coincidence. Fillmore, Nguyen, Vodello, contact the staff. Everyone, all buildings, whatever it takes. Everybody else in the briefing room NOW!"

Enlai Zhen placed a hand on my shoulder. His inky black eyes were serious and somber. "You heard the man. Snap out of it, O'Farrell."

"Snap out of it? Trust me, if I do that I'll panic. You want me like this," I insisted, hating the weakness in my own voice. "I'm as fine as I could possibly be under circumstances, so lay _off_ me!"

I didn't mean to sound so angry, or so hurtful, but he didn't even seem to care. He just dropped my arm and walked away. That was who Enlai was; he wouldn't try to get close to people, ever, and nothing would ever phase him. Even this little moment of sympathy was a leap forward. And I'd spat in his face for it. I didn't even care. I couldn't care. How could I care about some random dude's feelings when my friends were out there trapped with a maniac? I sulked as I pulled out my walkie talkie and began varying my way through the channels. _This should not be happening._ This wasn't my life. It was some surrealist nonsense from a play or a story, not real life. In real life things like this don't happen at X. They couldn't. I saw untouchable Enlai's hands shaking. We were in way, way over our heads with this thing. I couldn't even begin to picture what was going down in that building. Why would anyone pick the main building with all those cameras and people there? Did they not care if they got caught? So wrapped up in my thoughts was I that I didn't even hear the boom.

What I did hear was Ingrid saying, "Pipe bomb," and, from Enlai's listening station, someone else saying, "Sparkler bomb."

That was when I passed out.


	3. Rise And Fall

This, traditionally, is the stage of the proceedings where things go wrong.

The body count in these things so rarely hits the doubly digits because people snap. They rant. They rave. They get angry. They break down. But not me; see, I'm so broken I'm not even here anymore. I'm as broken as she was when they left her there, eyes glazed over like fine glass, blood the brightest red I'd ever seen. That was when I knew that I had to do something drastic. That was when I felt every shred of restraint and morality within me shatter into a thousand pieces on the floor. I could have picked up the pieces. I didn't. After years and years of constant, never ending, always escalating pain, there comes a time when you spit on the pieces of what you once were and rise up.

It was time to do something. Not yell, not rant, not explain, no, just _be_, like a hurricane. A long time ago I had thought that people like this were crazy. Now I saw them for the firestorms they were. That was their problem. They unleashed the fire too early, on too few people and then themselves. Me, though, everything was so torn apart that I was incapable of breaking down. Only my clenched hands and scowl betrayed the inner inferno, the all consuming hate that filled every speck of my being.

"Stop this, Jay," I heard someone say behind me. I didn't have to turn. Third. Another world-weary 'seen it all' Patroller with a sob story. Another 'we can help' bullshit tale. I scowled at her. "It doesn't have to be this way."

I didn't even bother with a retort, aiming a shot off quickly from the hip. She sprang aside. I knew she would. They always did. Big mouths, little courage, little reaction. Quite frankly she probably only knew my name because she had a photograph memory and access to school files. That was all I was to her. I was a photo and a name. She didn't know I used to dream about running away to the circus or that I would always drum along to my music. She didn't know what my parents did to me or the way I used to skip meals to keep myself from throwing up with anxiety. All I was, all I would ever be was a photo and a name to these people unless I was popular, pretty, sexy or athletic or smart. If you weren't somebody you were nobody. She didn't care what happened to me. She cared about her job.

She cared about the bullies. Because fair trials and evidence and teachers had worked so well before, right? Spare me the moral spiel, Third. I'm no fool. I know the way the world really works. In the real world no one cares about you unless they can use you. If they can use you, they'll abuse you, break you, throw you away and move on. That's what we all are to people. Including - _especially_ our parents. And then when we're useless we're nothing. But if you're golden you can get away with anything, the rules need not apply, nothing is ever bad if you're good enough. That is how the world works unless you fight back against the people who are abusing their power. Fighting them will get you killed socially and mentally, emotionally and physically.

That is where I come in. I can sink no lower. I can lose nothing more. Third scrambles away when I send another bullet her way, and then I'm out of the building, reloading as I walk, ready for round two. When I'm over with people won't ever think of Parnassus and his little cronies as golden ever again. Even if they could bribe their way out of it they wouldn't be alive to do so. I will destroy them like they did her, shoot them and leave them like they did with the only kind person I've ever known. And as they lay choking on their own blood they will know exactly what it was like. No one will come to save them. Not in time.

And oh, boo hoo, sing me the song of the so called innocents! The innocents who sat there and let it all happen, who looked the other way, who never reported a thing. These people are callous and cold, manipulative little whores like everyone else. There are no good people. The last good person on Earth died in my arms. Her final words were that she was sorry. It wasn't even her fault but she was sorry, for everything. That's why I'm beyond salvation, beyond being put back together, because I saw her body go still, heard the final breath, felt her go limp. In that moment any faith in this disgusting race was wiped from me, snuffed out like a candle, leaving me to the darkness. I was truly alone.

I'll be with her soon. But I'll make them remember her name, have her words in the mouths of every newscaster in the nation. The guilty will be known for what they did, the whole school will know what it's like too lose someone. You don't know who you are until you're in the darkness. You don't know what tragedy is until your friends are dead. Personal loss is the only way to make moral people out of these fools. Know why? Until it directly affects them people don't care, can't care, only pretend to care because others are watching. I take aim for a torso and don't flinch as screams errupt anew.

"Bored now," I mutter dejectedly.

Please, as if they care? They're only scared for themselves, not for the other kids. They're not ushering each other to hide, they're hiding themselves. They don't care. None of them ever have. If I put the gun to my head, no one would try to stop me. I remember being on a stalled carnival ride once, watching people look up at me awaiting my plummet to my death. They wanted an entertaining story. That's all humanity has ever desired from one another is cheap thrills. Past using each other no one cares. Even my own parents used me, _fucked_ me, like it was nothing, like I wasn't their kid. My only regret is not killing them. But that could've alerted the police to the scene. I needed to remaiin invisible. That's what a beaten kid is: invisible.

Until, of course, they have a gun. I wield in my hands the power to make my presence known. This is the stage where people mess up. They get drunk on a hint of power, they begin ranting, they give their motives, or they try to bargain with police. Well, it'll be a long tme until police get in here, and by then I don't plan on having sharing anything. This isn't about me. This isn't even about her. This is about making a stand, telling the world, 'no, you can't do this and get off scott free, golden boy or not'. I wish I could be there to see the papers and the newscasters as they try to deal with the fact an itty bitty kid did this. I can't imagine what that does to their self centered little minds. With precision I aim through the glass window of a door and then they're sitting ducks under that table. I don't know how many times I have to repeat this before they realize what's happening, the staff, I mean. I wonder if they even care?

I doubt it. But it doesn't matter. Nothing matters.

Not anymore.

I'm so sick of trying. Of being told to be better. Try harder. Ignore them. Ignore them? With what they're doing to me? What they did to her - I can't forgive that, I can't forgive the way they wrecked the life of an angel for _shits and giggles_. I don't want to be mature. I want to break something, some_one_. I want to destroy them, hurt them, lash out. So what if people were random in my line of fire? That didn't matter when people were playing with me, tying me up with duct tape, throwing me around, when I hadn't ever done anything to them. It was okay then, why isn't it okay now? It's okay for people to hurt me, why can't I make them hurt? People blame me for everything so I'll blame them for my actions. It's always been alright before. I've always backed down for people, taken all this, and today I'm going to stop trying. I admit it. I can't rise above. I can't be better than this. I can't change. This is who I am, this person who sprints after one blonde boy with a hundred other targets nearby. This person who fires wildly from the hip just to see him scream, who smiles when he falls, that's who I am now. This is me not trying, not compromising, not backing down no matter what. All my life I've been weak.

Today I don't back down for anyone.


	4. World Gone Wrong

Folsom and Vallejo were screaming at each other.

Enlai and I were trying in vain to get tabs on where everyone was. Missing in action, confirmed injury, evacuated the premisis, out of the danger zone, and people in between those categories. The worst was that we couldn't contact Ingrid. That was the worst for me. Anza and Tehama were out in the south parking lot. Some teacher had made them evacuate alongside everyone else, wouldn't hear a word to the contrary. She had a talkie now and was on Channel 16 of our available lines, which was a really bad sign in and of itself.

The Safety Patrol, the staff and the heads of various clubs all had talkies. Ten people could be on a line at once before it would switch you over to the next Channel. Normally we operated on three or four channels, six or seven on a busy day. Today everything was filled up to Channel 16, where Ms. Asaji was giving out instructions on repeat, instructions Ndidi Sabisi and Bonita Vasquez were repeating over as many channels as they could manage. There were people calling out for us to come save them. People were trying to find out what was happening. Something was blocking out cellphone access across campus, or at least across three buildings that we knew of. Hysterical rumors of a second shooter abounded, but nothing was confirmed, and it was maddening to even try to think of the possibilites. A few injured students had crammed their way into the Safety Patrol HQ and were huddled in the interrogation room, where Officer Ayulan tried to treat their injuries with a First Aid Kit. He was running out of supplies as people kept coming in and leaving for the nearest tunnel route, escorted by the head of the Architechute Club, who had made three trips so far. The massve size of our school was its own weakness. We were doomed.

People were dead. Not injured, dead, really truly gone, and the bodies were a sore spot; we couldn't get people to leave their classmates, their friends, the dead and dying. Teachers were flooding Folsom's office with calls that all her aides were trying to handle, but she needed that phone line for contacting the police and getting them here before things got any worse. Enlai and I had been trying to keep a list of confirmed casualites, but it was wildly apparent that number was rising, and eventually we settled for mapping out an affected area map with the help of a rookie Patroller named Seqi. If our caculations were correct the shooter was well into their second building in the ths rampage. Possibly a third. Calls from the Archer Building weren't coming in right. I didn't even try to think of what that could mean.

All the while there was the background sound of screaming, two people at the end of the rope refusing to budge an inch. Vallejo wasn't evacuating us. _We_ weren't evacuating, and if he ordered us to we'd have fought it with everything in us. Folsom was screaming that the police were equipped to handle this, to take care of these kinds of situations, and this kind of thing was too much for us. She didn't want us to die. She was actually near tears, the softness in her voice making Vallejo waver, but until we got a signal we were all glued to our respective spots.

I wondered what my mom was going to do to me when this over. She'd be mad I stayed when I was told to leave. She totally would think that; she never approached of anything I did. She'd look at this as yet another act of defiance, an attempt to look grown up. I'd probably be grounded after this for a year. But even if my hands were shaking and my heart was hammering in my chest, I had to stay. There were lots of kids in there who needed help. They needed guidance. They needed someone, anyone, and I could be that person. So what if I was just a seventh grader? I could do this. I was better than no one. Better it be me than silence on that radio, right? Wasn't this the right thing to do? Wasn't that what our parents always told us to do?

"The police are on their way, and then you're leaving, like it or not!" Folsom yelled at Vallejo, causing a slight pause in the office. "Any action you take from this point on will not be supported by the school!"

"At least we're taking action!" Vallejo roared back. "Go back to playing office politics with the superintendant and leave the real work to the _real_ adults!"

She slapped him. Heads turned and people paused even in the chaos. She looked as surprised as anyone else did. Vallejo touched the spot where he'd been hit, and mumbled some kind of apology no one else caught. That was what did it; Principal Folsom broke down. She did something then she had never done before in public, not in a long time. She started crying. Vallejo's words died in his throat. "If you try to handle this you're all going to get killed. I..."

They stared at each other, wordlessly, fists clenched and bloodshot eyes angry, locked on, stubborn. Something in Vallejo's eyes softened briefly. He muttered something in Spanish, which was usually a sign he was furious or at his wits end or just not awake. Everything was surreal. People were staring, watching, and they were locked into their own little world. Neither was big on emotional displays, but today had pushed them over the edge, and now they were at a point of no compromise, neither willing to yield an inch. Things had been said that were damaging, on both sides. Resentments had built up. But for just a moment they connected. For just a second the two most rock solid people in the school were vulnerable. It was uncomfortably private to witness and not just a little surreal. They never, ever wanted to think it, let alone admit to it, but they cared about each other. They couldn't help it. The obvious of it would've been comical under any other circumstances. Vallejo pulled down the blinds on his office door so we couldn't see them.

Somewhere in the hazy mess of Channel 17, an uncertain voice said, "I think a Safety Patroller's been shot."

And chaos errupted anew.

* * *

I'm not shaking. I'm not even looking up.

That's profoundly stupid. This whole plan is insanity and stupidity wrapped up all in one, a lowest low in a life spent lower than most people know exists. Jay. The name is unfamiliar and foreign on my tongue, someone such a nobody that when all was said and done I didn't know him any better than anyone else. I'm nobody too. I'm a piece of shit too, in run down rags too with scars just as visible. No one ever came for me either.

It's sick, how much Jay and I are alike. Not physically. I am an Aryan posterchild, a beautiful broken doll with ash blonde hair and dark blue eyes. It's why people like to have their 'fun' with me. The idealistic, cherubic appearance begged for it, compelled them to it. They hurt me and used me because I was born looking like a good target to people who don't care what happens to me. Jay isn't that sickly, disgusting face in the mirror. He's perfect, with wavy, tangled dark hair, the color of the charcoal he used to draw in art class. A snub nose, tanned skin, splatters of blood. Long legs, long fingers, like a painter or a musician, and hazel eyes that burn. They burn into everything in front of him with such intensity it would scare me.

Would. But see, I don't have anything to lose either.

I've been hurt too. I know what it's like to be helpless and little more than a toy, an object to be used. I can see it in his eyes. Someone used him. I don't know who did. I don't know what happened or how long it's been going on, but I know that emptiness. I know that boiling point where you become so angry you go over into a kind of tranquil fury, calm infused with violence and hate. A second ago I couldn't look up, now I can't look away. I see reflected at me someone who I could be, someone who I maybe sometimes deep down wanted to be, a monster. Monsters are feared. They cannot be hurt. They are the infamous, the whispered terrors of X's lockers and classrooms. No one dares hurt them.

Except the nobody. Because that is what I am. I am no one. I am nothing. I have never been worth anything to anyone. Although my transferrence of custody to my great grandfather was supposed to change things, the truth was that I had already been exposed to the truth of who I was. I was violent. Angry. A punk. Nothing more than a piece of garbage even to the other crooks at X, a nameless mook, a human shield to be used to divert attention from the more important criminals. I was never anything important. I was never delicate, innocent, fragile, loving, all the things these kids are. I was never smart or talented enough to count. There is nothing left to threaten me with; they already took my dignity and my humanity, what is Jay going to do? Shoot me?

What's one more physical wound to me? My arms are covered in them. They make each second real. Before they released the pain. When the pain faded and there was nothing left, it became a way to breathe, to live, to remind myself I was alive. Now it's a weapon in my hand, a terribly small, awkwardly shaped one, something that they didn't detect me sneaking in this morning. They never do. People here aren't very smart. I'm standing inside a locker with the world's worst plan formed, ready to do what these idiots should've done a long time ago. Someone should have done this at the beginning. People as drunk on power as Jay is right now can't think someone might challenge them; he has the gun. What idiot would take on someone who's got a gun and a pipebomb on them?

Me. I've never known when to quit. I will never learn that lesson. Stupid, hardheaded stubborn idiot. Everyone knows what a pathetic mess I am. Never did know how to take authority. Never did understand the boundaries between appropriate and inappropriate. We problem children are like wrenches inside a machine, clogging it up and destroyed it from the inside. I wonder if Jay has a great little speech prepared, in his head. Does he think it's all worth it and it'll all be better now? That this will change anything, make anything better, make people remember him? It won't. No one cares. No one has ever cared, or will ever care. You could shoot yourself through the head and they'd step over the body here, too absorbed in their worlds of friendship bracelets and sitcoms and crushes. I hate them too. I know what it's like to hate them.

I will never be them. I will never be able to be like that. I will never be normal or innocent or stupid. I won't ever get butterflies in my stomach because of a girl, I won't ever blush and giggle at Sex Ed or get excited about the sports games. I will never be able to wake up without the pangs of white hot panic that have become so familiar to me. I'm not like Jay. I know why we hate. It's a kind of jealousy so intense it renders you numb after a while. You become numb to their world. It floats above and away from me, foreign and unobtainable. I hate them, the kids who go to church, blush at mini-skirts and try to be cool. The masses, the sheep, the filthy conformist dolts I would give anything to be like, just for a single moment, just for a few precious seconds. I used to cry and scream and hate and rage at them and God and fate and the universe and the human race. I used to grieve what I'd lost, hate what I couldn't have, and secretly dream, fantasies of a purer me.

This morning I was going to kill myself. I came here to clean out my locker, because I didn't want my great grandfather to have to do it or be sent useless junk by the school. My room is still waiting for me at his house, packed up in neat boxes. I spent the night preparing to die, preparing to be forgotten. I planned to die today. Sleeping pills, stolen anti-anxiety meds from a girl in my first period class, stolen over the course of two weeks. Follow down with sufficient amounts of vodka swiped from the locker of a former friend who didn't change his combination, and death would come swiftly. Three hours at most, given my calculations. It would be a beautiful death. I would welcome it with open arms, the quiet, the comfort, the peace. I still want it. Jay hasn't stopped me. He's delayed me.

There's no hope left for me, but those kids out there are still worth something. They're still people. I'm not a person. I will never be. I can want it, but it will never happen, not now. Too much structural damage. My only redeeming feature, the only thing I like myself even slightly for doing, is being too stupid not to fight back.

Were I a better man, this would be the point where I negotiate; talk the villain down, so to speak. I'd rant about morality and right and wrong and all that.

Instead, I just silently slip out of my locker's door and grip my knife tighter.

Time for the nobody to meet the nightmare.


	5. Shots In The Dark

**Author's Note:** I think the final line might count as The Untwist, it's such a cliche in Fillmore fanfic. Nonetheless, I must pause to note that we're hitting the crescendo of violence here. The next chapter things are wrapped up, as much as they can be in the wake of a tragedy, so this is the near-climax. And it has some really angry violent scenes. So, um, please read at your own discretion, knowing I don't endorse anything done in here. Not shooting, or pistol whipping, or going off to fight crime like a vigilante. Everything that happens in here I disapprove of on some level, although in the sins of intention sense of morality everybody's innocent and well intended except for Jay.

We'll probably get to the end of this thing by the end of the month. And there will probably be sequel fic where everyone deals with the aftermath and the dead are mourned and angst is had. But again, we have to go through the dark to get to the light at the end of the tunnel.

* * *

_I have no mouth, and I must scream._

I can taste my heartbeat in my mouth.

There's a little bit of blood in it, and it surges. Pushes forward, like the ocean's tides. But it doesn't pull back. There's enough in it that, as I gasp for air, it falls out of my mouth. It overflows, pushes out. _Bleeds_ out. And I can't talk. Not because of the blood filling up my mouth and pouring out my nose, not because of the way I can smell and taste my pulse. It's because there is a pain in me right now so great and powerful all my literary references fail me.

Everything falls away. Everything. I know my eyes are open but I can't see. I know my ears are working and I can't even hear my heartbeat. I don't feel the tile or wood floor or whatever it is. There is no hot. There is no cold.

There is only pain.

I don't lose consciousness. I don't black out. I breathe. I bleed. I can't even figure out where I've been shot. I barely know that's what happened. Somewhere out there, I am aware, vaguely, that there is a world. People. I know this the way you know about interdimensional physics; it's so far away I don't even understand the concept. I can't even feel the rest of my body. Everything is that pain, that constant, throbbing, flooding, paralyzing pain.

_A spirit trapped within a tree, no ears to hear or eyes to see..._

I feel like I'm in an episode of _Dexter_ where they're investigating a crime. Any second now Michael C. Hall will come hin here, say a few lines and then congratulate me for doing a good job. The camera crew will smile at me as I rush past to get some water and flush the blood out of my mouth. This can't be real. I can't really have been so stupid, so incredibly foolish, pathetic and rash as to have gotten _shot_. This can't be happening.

My heartbeat is slowing down.

I think I hear my mother.

* * *

"I don't care what either of you say," Fillmore informed Folsom and Vallejo calmly. "O'Farrell, Zhen, we're going."

I didn't question it. I felt more than saw Magla slip in behind us, and some part of me knew that would be a lawsuit later. A fifth grade honorary in the gunfight. Fan_tas_tic. And I thought bringing Danny was stupid. But I know better than to argue with her. People are stupid. People will do anything, no matter how long the odds or stupid the idea, if it's right. Well, _certain_ people are like that. A few people are. I know five. I am deeply honored and priveleged to know five truly good people I can believe in to do the right thing.

If we don't get there in time, I'll know four.

"There's some tazers in my brother's locker," I volunteer helpfully. "It's enroute. Locker 145, combination 34-81-23. Magla, you've got your crossbow in your locker, right?"

"It's a floor up!" she protested. We both ignored Danny paling between us. "We don't have time!"

"We're going a floor up, actually," Fillmore said as we rounded a corner, following his lead closely. He was practically running. "We'll get the drop on him from the stairs by the bathroom. How good a shot are you?"

"Very, but I left my metal hollows in the Archery Club's room on the fifth floor. Enlai, the Fencing Club's swords are up there, right?" She asked, breathlessly tying back her hair as she walked. It formed a sloppy bun, with stray strands lingering around her face. Everything was happening so fast. I could barely think. We were rushing into danger, walking in formation.

It was so stupid. Like we had a plan. Like we were a SWAT team or card carrying CIA members or something. We were acting like we were in Kevlar and wielding pistols. You know, in retrospect I blamed myself. Enlai the voice of reason, the calm one, the responsible veteran, who let a little kid, a photographer and a former crook march into the line of fire. Voice of reason my ass. I know more about deep sea oceanography and greed than I do morality. I joined to save my sorry self and stayed for the extra credit. I never had any good intentions or noble thoughts. Ask anyone who knew me before X; I've never had an altruistic moment in my life. So full of myself and sure I was doing the right thing, I never stopped to think about what was right or wrong. I admired other people, but I never knew what it was like to actually be good. I wanted this to be over. I wanted my normalcy back.

I talked. I walked. But I didn't _think_. And that was what cost us.

"Yes, unfortunately," I replied aloud, not a single doubt or rational thought in my mind.

Before 'unfortunately' had left my mouth, Fillmore was turning on me. "Get. Your. Sword. O'Farrell, you're on tazers. You with the red hair-"

"Magla Viszlavich," she tried to say, but he overrode her.

"-do you have arrows in your locker?"

"That's illegal," she observed, looking suddenly ill as a thought struck her. _Well, so are tazers,_ I thought snarkily. _Fillmore didn't exactly fall over himself to object to that._ "I - I don't want to kill anyone!"

"That's not what I asked!" he snapped so fiercely she flinched as if struck.

"...yes. Five. Wood," she added quickly, nervously. "I've got more bolts up on the fifth floor."

"Five shots is plenty. You'll just have to be accurate. Everybody converge on the landing by the vending machines. Listen to me carefully. Do _not_, _**not**_, no matter what, engage this man without back up. No matter what. Do I make myself clear?"

Nobody responded right away.

And that was when I had a terrible premonition one of us was going to do something heroic.

* * *

She thinks she's sneaking up on me.

She's short, and out of breath. I hear her muffled, too-loud breathing. I see her glittery silver shoes flash in my vision. God help us all, she ducks under the cover of a table coated with pamphlets for recruiting clubs. I don't know what she has, though I caught a glimpse of it in the corner of my vision. She's got something. She wants to stop me.

She's tiny and she's got hair the color of red wine, with eyes the color of amber stained glass. And when her eyes meet mine, she moves.

I move faster.

Her shot misses my head by inches, but mine hits her leg. She screams, like I used to scream. A primal sound, in the back of her throat, it bursts out and ends as briefly as lightning. Whatever she was holding goes clattering to the ground as she clutches the spot below her knee, gasping. I thought her breath was coming hard before. She's drowning in air now.

I've decided today I like screaming. A lot. And I can't have her reaching for that walkie talkie at her side, so I begin to walk towards her.

That's when metal clangs behind me. I turn. My shot is wild, not even vaguely aimed, and it doesn't slow the blur of denim and outdoor-smell that slams into me. Jesus Christ, I see silver, and I kick. I kick and throw my body against his, smash my head against his, get a good kick into his stomach. I hear it clatter even if I can't see it, because he's flailing and putting up a noble fight considering my hand's around his neck. Instinctively, not thinking, the gun drops and I get my other hand around his neck.

I choke him. I slam his head into the floor, violently, laughing when I see a smear of red in the blonde hair, and I leave his body limp on the floor as I reach for the gun. His eyes are hazy, but locked onto me as I press the gun to his forehead.

"Sweet Jesus Christ, protector of all that is good and holy," I hear the redheaded girl saying. And I laugh out loud.

"Oh, he can't hear you now, darling," I inform her. I pistol whip the blonde and feel a surge of power. I hope the news gets a good shot of his broken nose. As I rise up to my feet, I see her eyes widen. She shoves herself back up against the wall with her good leg. She's shaking so bad I can see her from here.

"Jesus Christ," she begins again, "Protector of all that is good and holy, I throw myself at..." she shuts her eyes when I step in front of her. My shadow covers half her face, and she flinches.

"You know, I think I know this line," I say, watching the fear play out against her face. There's a black, obsidian cross visible under her white shirt. I rip it off her neck and hold it up to the light. "Serbian Orthodox Church downtown, right? The tacky place with all the marble and silver. What a sick joke. The world starves and you have _a silver plated altar_."

The obsidian shatters against the wall.

This isn't about her. It's not about her church. She could be Italian or Greenlandic or Chinese for all I care. It's about every self righteous cross wearing do gooder with a mouth who ever fucked me over, physically, literally or emotionally. It's about every kid who's hurt me. Every woman. Every girl. It's no more personal with her than it would be if I found a smart ass Buddhist Club member or an Atheist Club prick. They're all self righteous and full of themselves, convinced they're doing so much good, making the world a better place.

Yeah, the silver plated altar really helped me when my dad carved open my back. It really saved me from the bullies here at school. The white marble really helped when the only good person I ever met was bleeding out on the dirt last night.

This is about the jackass who did it, the one with an identical obsidian cross, the jackass I didn't get today. The one I haven't found yet, the one who's getting away with murder when I could never get away with a peaceful fucking day.

Parnassus.


End file.
